


An Invitation

by ATwistOfLemonLyman



Series: The Gods Have Conspired [6]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: Gen, Josh's Mom - Freeform, Mrs. Lyman - Freeform, Vignette, i don't know what to call her in the tags since she's never given a name in canon -_-, maybe? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 04:11:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8875471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ATwistOfLemonLyman/pseuds/ATwistOfLemonLyman
Summary: Mrs. Lyman's birthday. 1987.





	1. Back in Town

**Author's Note:**

> This has been published previously but I'm reformatting my fic into an anthology of sorts so I'm separating these two chapters from the prologue they were previously attached to.

**Late May 1987**

**Westport, Connecticut**

* * *

 Rachel Abravanel felt her bed dip beneath her and she groaned.

"Buenos dias, Rahelica," said the distinctly deep voice Rachel usually found comforting, but that today brought back memories of the rare days she hadn't wanted to go to school and her father would have to coax her out of bed.

"Dad," she whined without making a move to free herself from her cocoon of blankets.

Rachel's father responded with a low chuckle.

"Rahelica, you've been back for almost a week now and you've spent most of your time sleeping, don't you think it's time you join the land of the living?" he asked in his slightly accented voice. The forty years of his life spent living and working in the US hadn't managed to get rid of those last traces of the languages he'd grown up speaking as a child and continued to speak fluently. The careful enunciation of someone who had spent countless hours trying to learn the language of his new home, the tongue's temptation to roll R's the way one did when speaking Spanish, terms of endearment in the language he'd learned from the Sephardic side of the family, Yiddish expressions he'd picked up from the other side of the family, they were all there.

Rachel had missed hearing this rich voice with all its quirks in person the few years she'd been abroad for school, the phone calls and short visits home hadn't been enough.

"I'm quite comfortable being in the land of the sleeping, Daddy."

"So, you will be sleeping the rest of the day away and won't be joining your mother and I for the party tonight?"

Rachel really wasn't in the mood for parties or even discussions of parties but she decided to humor her father. Rachel rolled over to face him but her eyes remained closed.

"What party?" she mumbled.

"The Lymans are throwing a party, it's Ada's birthday."

Rachel slowly opened her eyes.

"It's Mrs. Lyman's birthday?"

Rachel's father nodded.

"Oh."

"When Ada found out you were back she asked us to bring you along, in fact she insisted, she said it's been far too long since she's seen you."

Rachel liked the Lymans very much, she couldn't help but enjoy Mr. Lyman's sense of humor and Mrs. Lyman's warmth and wit, Rachel loved watching them interact with each other.

Rachel's parents, Samuel and Rivka, had quickly become friends with the Lymans after moving from New York to Connecticut in 1975. Ada Lyman had discovered that she and her new neighbor had mutual friends in New York, friends Ada had made back in her days as a ballet student and Rivka had made during her time as a model and part-time muse for New York's artistic set. Ada had been Ada Strauss in those days and Rivka had recently changed her surname from Zylberman to Silverman, it would change for a second time when a handsome Mexican Jew swept her off her feet with his intellect and charm and convinced her to marry him. Samuel had found good friends in both Noah Lyman and Noah's father, David. He'd also found the two men invaluable when he had started working on his book on the Jewish legal tradition.

Rachel had of course gotten to know the Lyman's son, Josh, a little. It had been inevitable, they lived just down the road from each other, both attended Greens Farms Academy, and their families went to the same Temple.

She had been too busy adjusting to her new home and new school to pay too much attention to a boy that was two years older. Her first year in Connecticut she'd been occupied with the task of making new girlfriends and navigating the strange waters of her new private school, but Josh, despite his awkwardness, was a nice enough boy so she would smile and and say hi when their paths would cross at school. Rachel would also see him at temple from time to time, usually accompanying Mrs. Lyman's father who would visit Westport most weekends and was the only member of Josh Lyman's family who went to services regularly.

Josh rarely ever wanted to be at Temple, Rachel would see a none-too pleased Josh walking beside his grandfather, Mr. Strauss, when she went to the synagogue with her parents. She could see that Josh Lyman cared a great deal for his grandfather, it was made obvious by the way he would smile at the older man, how close he stood to him, and how his body would relax whenever his grandfather made any sort of physical contact, he always looked genuinely happy to be with his grandfather despite looking like he was ready to bolt out of the synagogue as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

And as for Mr. Strauss, it hadn't been at all hard to like the man. He was a handsome man, with his thick silver mane and a well-trimmed mustache flanked by a pair of dimples; many of the older widows fussed over him. Rachel had once seen the number tattooed on the inside of his arm and couldn't help remembering the number she'd seen on her Grandfather Aron's arm.  She was always amazed how men like Jakob Strauss and her Grandfather Aron could survive such a horrible experience with not only their sanity intact, but their kindness, sense of humor, and faith.

"I guess I should probably get out of bed then and maybe find Mrs. Lyman a gift," Rachel said to her father, suddenly feeling very eager to see the family she hadn't seen in the four years she'd been away.

"I think that would be a good idea, Rahelica," Rachel's father said before bending over and giving his daughter a peck on the forehead.

"Dad, I'm getting too old for that," she whined softly, only half meaning it.

An amused smile spread across her father's face.

"You'll never be too old for that, chiquita," he said, giving her nose a gentle tap before he rose from Rachel's bed and headed out of her room.


	2. The Summer Wind

_"The summer wind, came blowin' in from across the sea_   
_It lingered there to touch your hair and walk with me_   
_All summer long we sang a song and then we strolled that golden sand_   
_Two sweethearts and the summer wind"_

_**Westport, Connecticut** _   
_**Late May - 1987** _

* * *

 

Summer would be coming early.

  
It had been warmer than usual for late Spring and the drop in temperature that the night brought with it was a pleasant relief. Josh was enjoying the cool night air as he sat near the far end of the pool; the water illuminated from above by the strings of lights and paper lanterns that had been strung across the yard. He stared at the water’s surface as it distorted the lights and felt himself being enveloped by the music being played by the jazz band; they were playing a tune familiar to Josh, it was on his father's favorite Dave Brubeck Quartet record.

As far as Josh was concerned the night had been a bust so far. He was certain his parents and their guests were enjoying themselves, that was to be expected, they liked the frilly rum cocktails and the jazz music, and, unlike Josh, they had plenty of people from their cohort to talk to. The person closest to Josh’s age was at least 15 years older than him.

The place was crawling with women who wore the cloying scents that middle-aged women seemed to favor, all of them wanting to pinch Josh’s dimpled cheeks. And then there were the men, one after the other giving Josh's shoulder a manly slap and asking him how trying to follow in his father’s footsteps was going.

"At least Daniella hasn't found me yet," Josh thought to himself. She would want to know about more than the career goals that everyone else had decided for him.

Josh had lost count of the number of times he had told his parents' friends that he was actually hoping to work in DC instead of becoming a litigator like his father. They had, of course, remained unconvinced; every single person there certain that Josh would change his mind and do what the men on both sides of his father’s family did best.

Several of the people at the party had families that had been in Westport for generations, just like much of Josh's family had. They all knew Noah's father David Lyman, known to the residents of Westport as "Judge Lyman", and of course the DAR ladies all knew about the patriot Pintos of Sephardic origin; the Pintos had been the “give me liberty or give me death” type of revolutionaries. As daughters married names changed, a Pinto woman had become a Levy and then a branch of the Westport Levys and a branch of the Westport Lymans met and became one upon Miriam Levy’s marriage to David Lyman; the last traces of the assimilated Pintos’ Sephardic ways absorbed and mostly forgotten once they had begun marrying into Ashkenazi families. Two of the Pinto brothers had studied law at Yale, that meant that for 200 years someone in Josh Lyman’s family tree had been a Yale trained lawyer, managing to get past the quotas because they may have been Jewish but they were from old patriot stock and they had money.

  
Josh sighed at that thought of the anti-semitism of years past and toyed with the drink in his hand. He slid the pineapple and cherry garnish off the toothpick umbrella and watched them float in circles in the hurricane that one of his mother’s friends had thrust into his hands.  
Seven generations of men who practiced law and Josh wanted to be the one to break the streak.  
Josh sighed and gave the bright red cherry a poke.

  
Despite these expectations Josh had never really felt the weight of tradition bearing down on him before. Josh had been naturally interested in going into law since childhood (after his ballerina phase, of course), no one had had to sell him the idea. He had admired his father and his grandfather, had loved going through his father's old law books, listening in on the legal debates his father would have with Grandpa David, even when he’d been too young to understand- really understand, and later the lively discussions Josh himself would have with his father at the dinner table.

  
His parents were easy to please, Josh just had to work hard and apply himself and it didn’t matter what he ended up doing with his life as long as it meant he was doing good for others. And, though he would never admit it, since his sister's death, Josh had become very eager to please his parents and he knew joining his father at Debevoise & Plimpton would please them enormously.

  
Josh's interest in politics had begun in high school but it wasn't until he had started college that he'd realized that, while he still wanted to study law, he would be taking what he'd learn in the years ahead into the field of politics. That summer internship he had done in D.C. as an undergrad had cemented Josh's desire to work for the government in some capacity. When Josh had told his parents about his plans Noah Lyman had called Leo McGarry and placed the blame squarely on his old friend's shoulders.

  
"The tales you regaled my boy with have addled his young impressionable brain," Noah had said to Leo. "He should have been chasing after girls or playing baseball but instead you had him hanging on your every word every single time you came to visit!"  
Ada Lyman had rolled her eyes at her husband and told him to be happy that Josh was still planning on going to Yale Law, so what if he didn't want to practice law.

  
Josh continued to contemplate the things from his youth that had led to his present situation, an unhappy clerk working at a law firm, living in his parents' home, hoping to be in DC by the Summer's end, when a voice from that selfsame past came piercing through his thoughts.

"Joshua Lyman, my have you changed," it said.

Josh was startled by the voice.

It instantly sounded familiar, he’d heard a voice quite similar to it earlier that night. The one woman who had refrained from pinching his cheeks, or doing something equally offensive to Josh’s sensibilities, had a similar voice. This voice that was deep and sultry, even when saying the most innocent words, could belong to only two people. The first was Rivka Abravanel and the other was her daughter, Rachel.  
Its less polished quality and the absence of a slight English accent meant that it had to be-

“Um-uh- hi, Rachel,” Josh said as he turned around to look at the source of the unmistakable voice.

“Okay, maybe you haven't changed too much,” Rachel said after laughing softly, amused by Josh’s stammering start.

Josh’s mouth clamped shut, his brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed, not completely sure how he felt about being teased by an old schoolmate he hadn't seen in years and hadn't been particularly close to.

“Mind if I sit?” she asked, pointing to the chair beside Josh.

“Nah, go ahead,” Josh answered as he scooted his chair at an angle so that he could look at her properly as they spoke, if he managed to string more than a few words together anyway, he wasn't doing well so far.

“You’ve- uh- you've changed too,” Josh said once she was seated.

“I guess I have,” she said with a smile.

Josh remembered the pretty but awkward-looking girl he’d gone to school with and had seen with her parents at Temple when he would go with his grandfather. She’d been rail thin with awkward limbs and a mass of wild wavy hair and a smile that revealed a set of braces. Josh laughed softly at his thoughts when he realized the he had been just as awkward even without the braces. Obviously Rachel had remembered the tall broad-shouldered boy who had been all arms and legs, limbs that only managed to work in concert when he was playing baseball, wearing his baseball cap that wrangled most of his unruly brown curls though there were always plenty peeking out.

“What's so funny, Lyman?” she asked.

“Us, when we were at Greens Farms.”

Rachel smirked.

“Well, we survived adolescence and we’ve filled out nicely.”

“Here’s to surviving adolescence,” Josh said, raising his glass.

“I'll drink to that,” Rachel said as she clinked her glass against Josh’s.

Josh took a sip of the drink he hadn't planned on imbibing and went back to observing Rachel.

  
The physical changes she’d gone through weren’t too drastic, her auburn hair looked a little more tame, she had a woman's curves, her face, having lost its baby fat, was a little more angular with well defined cheekbones. Despite the awkwardness of youth she'd been pretty then and she'd only grown more attractive as the years had passed.

“So, you’re back,” he finally said, he knew she'd been in England for the past few years.

“Yeah.”

“You’re not staying though, are you?” he'd heard something from his parents about the Abravanels moving but he hadn't been paying close attention to the conversation. He had nearly mastered blocking out his parents whenever they talked about the neighbors.

Rachel shook her head.

“This is just a pit stop. We’re all heading back to New York, Dad and I have accepted jobs at Columbia, we’ll be leaving in August.”

“Wow, that’s great.”

Josh was guessing, he supposed it was great, Columbia was a prestigious school and had been Samuel Abravanel's old stomping ground.

“Yeah, it's pretty great," Rachel agreed. "So what exactly are you up to, I think my Mom mentioned something about you working at a firm somewhere around here."

“Um, yeah, I’m something of a glorified assistant,” Josh answered, looking down at his glass, once again staring at the pineapple and cherry that skimmed the surface.

“Getting coffee, running errands, pulling files, research, that sort of thing?”

Josh sighed and nodded.

“Hm,” escaped from her mouth as she leaned back into her chair and looked up at the night sky. “A real ‘darf min gehn in kolledj’ sort of life you’re living,” she said before turning to look at him.

Josh’s eyebrow quirked at what he knew for a fact was Yiddish but he wasn’t so sure he knew the meaning of.

“For this I went to college,” Rachel explained. “I mean it isn't exactly what you went to school for, is it?”

“A klog iz mir!” Josh exclaimed before flashing her a smile.

Rachel returned his smile at his exclamation.

“I can bring the Yiddish sometimes," Josh smirked, overly proud of one of the few phrases he had retained from hearing his grandparents' occasional use of the language. This phrase in particular he had picked up from his neurotic grandmother Miriam who seemed to find plenty of woe in her life to go with the joy she found everywhere. "And no, it isn't exactly what I went to school for, but I’ve got to pay my dues as it were. Besides it's only temporary, just something to keep me busy while I look for something in D.C.”

“You want to move on to bigger and better things.”

“I don’t know about bigger and better,” Josh answered, he did after all think the world of his father and the work that he did. “Just different. It was never really my intention to practice law anyway.”

“Your Dad giving you a hard time over that?”

“Not exactly, no. He’d like me to join the firm permanently, or try to get a job at Debevoise & Plimpton, but he's known for a while that it wasn’t what I wanted to do. His colleagues on the other hand are getting annoying,” Josh said, rubbing at his shoulder, the one that had been the recipient of several slaps.  
Rachel laughed.

“I’m sure I wouldn’t have heard the end of it from my father’s friends if I hadn't followed him into academia. They always expected it and I didn't disappoint. Everyone at school knew you’d go into politics though.”

"Yeah?" Josh asked, trying to gauge from Rachel's smile and tone what it was his former classmates thought of his passion for politics.

"We were all impressed by the grasp you had of it, not that we were experts," she admitted. "You just really- cared."  
Josh felt himself blush, and his embarrassment only grew when he realized that it meant so much to him to hear Rachel say that the fact that he cared was evident. There were times where he tried to not make it so obvious that he cared but he for the most part he couldn't hide it, he was too loud, too passionate for people not to notice. Though he admired the man greatly and he was obviously one of the reasons why Josh had decided to go to Law School, he wasn't at all like his Grandfather David in that regard. David Lyman had been a quiet, reserved, and pensive man, Josh knew he had cared a great deal about a great many things, but it had never been evident by the way he looked or comported himself, the complete opposite of his talkative and neurotic wife.

  
This didn't mean that Josh was an open book when it came to his emotions. There were a handful of emotions that he could rarely hide; joy, happiness, passion, for some reason those were much more difficult to wrangle, but he could suppress just about anything else, he’d had a great deal of practice.

“So, are we the only-“ Rachel trailed off, looking at all the people milling about the house.  
Josh sighed.

“Yeah. I’m surprised you're here, I didn't know you'd been invited.”

“I think it was last minute. My dad said something about your mother finding out I was back.”  
Josh ran a hand through his hair.

“What would you say to getting out of here?”

“But- it's your mom’s birthday.”

“We’ll stay until they bring out the cake and everyone sings happy birthday, she won't mind, I already gave her her present and my dad and I took her out for breakfast this morning. We can go over to Joey’s and have some real food and something that doesn’t have rum in it.”

“Well,” Rachel began while looking intently at the maraschino cherry at the end of her umbrella toothpick. “I wouldn’t mind having a chocolate milkshake with one of these on top right about now.”

“Great!” Josh shouted as he leapt off the adirondack chair, quite a feat considering how low the chairs were.

“Ok, I clearly underestimated how badly you want to get out of here,” Rachel said as she stood up.

“This party has been going on for over two hours, I don’t know how much more jazz music I can take,” Josh said before he started moving.

Rachel had to lengthen her stride to keep up with Josh. He had much longer legs than Rachel did and he was practically running toward the house with that odd sort of bounce of his. Rachel wasn’t able to catch up until Josh came to a very sudden stop.

It didn’t take long for Rachel to see what had caused him to stand completely still.

Danniella Auerbach had spotted Josh and was walking toward them.

“Joshua, there you are! Come here, come here. And oh my god! Rachel Abravanel, is that you?”

“Oh god,” Rachel whispered before plastering a fake smile on her face, voicing exactly what Josh was thinking.

“Uh- hi, Daniella,” Josh said, displaying a smile that matched Rachel’s.

Daniella’s eyes narrowed as she observed how close Josh and Rachel were standing to each other. Her mind already beginning to make something out of nothing.

Daniella Auerbach's primary objective was to weasel out details about Josh's love life. It was beyond Josh why a woman like Daniella, with her advanced degree and children of her own to harass, was so interested in who her friends' children were dating. Her Eastern European accent only made her more Yenta-like in Josh’s mind.

Daniella's feline features, that were eerily similar to Zsa Zsa Gabor’s, and her overly exposed breasts coupled with her usual nosey behavior were too much for Josh to handle. He could feel himself about to break, his fake smile was beginning to slip and his eyes were perilously close to rolling.

Rachel had been trained from a very young age by her socially dynamic mother how to behave politely, how to fake it through the most tedious of conversations, and to pay close attention to social cues. Because of all that her mother had taught her and because she was astute, Rachel noticed the forced smile on Josh's face was about to disappear, she noticed how he was beginning to shift his weight, a sign of his impatience. She wondered if Daniella noticed how hard Josh was trying to look at anything but her low neckline and how miserably he was failing. Rachel was certain Daniella was fully aware of the young man's struggle to look away, she wasn't as obtuse as she made herself out to be.

In order to save both of them from further prying by the Romanian Yenta, Rachel turned her head slightly and looked past Daniella, planning to get help from the first person she made eye contact with. As luck would have it that person was Noah Lyman.

Rachel maintained eye contact with Josh's father, pointed to herself, and mouthed 'me?'.

Rachel willed Noah to play along and he did. Daniella, who had turned her head to find out who Rachel was looking at, saw him nodding and then pointing at Rachel and Josh and signaling for both of them to come over.

"Josh, I think your Dad wants to talk to us."

"Huh?"

"Your Dad, he wants us to head over to him. Bye Daniella, it was so lovely seeing you," she added as she began to move away from Daniella.  
Rachel looked over at Josh who still looked confused by everything that was going on. She would have grabbed his hand and dragged him away but physical contact of any sort would only serve to fuel the ideas she knew where already in Daniella's head.

Not fully grasping what was going on but also having no desire to be left alone with Daniella, Josh suddenly bolted from the spot he had been glued to only moments before.

"Bye Daniella, thanks for coming to the party," he said from over his shoulder before finally catching up to Rachel.

"What the hell is going on?" Josh whispered once he was next to Rachel.

"I noticed you were losing a battle of wills with Daniella's chest so I got us out of there."

"Hey!" Josh shouted, offended that anyone would think that an older woman's breasts would make him at all uncomfortable.

"What, you were! And she was enjoying it a little too much."

Josh sighed.

"So, my Dad didn't want to talk to us about something?"

"Nope, but we might as well because we've arrived at our destination. Hi, Mr. Lyman."

"Hello, Rachel. Daniella had the two of you cornered?"

“Like two little mice.”

“How very feline of her.”

Josh decided to interrupt his father before he could go on a tangent about cats, replete with puns as was his custom.

“Hey, Dad?”

Noah turned his attention to his son.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think Mom would mind if we-“

“Get the hell out of Dodge?”

Rachel laughed.

“Yeah. But not until after they bring out the cake,” Josh added quickly.

“Why don't you ask her yourself,” Noah said, looking over his son’s shoulder.

“So, the two of you want to ditch my party?”

Josh pivoted so quickly that Rachel was surprised that he hadn’t spilled what still remained in his glass.

“Ma-”

“I'm only teasing, Joshua.”

Josh gave his mother a lopsided grin.

“Now, what have you planned in that curly head of yours?”

“The party’s really great and all but-”

“You want to go have some real fun far away from all of these old people.”

“Who are you calling old?” Noah protested.

“You know exactly who I’m calling old,” Ada responded without missing a beat and turned her attention back to Josh. “So, where are you going and what time are you planning on getting back?”

“Ada, he’s a grown man.”

“Noah, it’s my birthday, let me have my fun.”

“Rachel needs to be reintroduced to proper American cuisine so we wanted to head over to Joey’s, we won’t be gone too long.”

Rachel didn’t mind being used as one of his excuses for leaving the party before it ended. Besides, Josh was right, she was desperate for diner food.

“Well, you were very well-behaved tonight and Rachel gave me a very lovely present so never mind waiting for the cake.”

“Really?”

“Really. Now go, enjoy your burnt hamburger.”

Ada tugged gently at Josh’s collar so that he’d bend down slightly.

“Don’t forget to be a gentleman and don’t be home too late,” she whispered before giving him a quick kiss on his forehead.

“Ma,” Josh whined softly.

His mother gave him a mock glare and he sighed in response.

“Rachel, sweetheart, thanks for coming.”

“Sorry, for leaving so soon,” Rachel apologized.

“It was nice to get a good look at you know that you’re all grown up,” Ada told her before giving her a hug. “Besides, we’ll be seeing plenty of each other before you all head over to New York.”

“Thanks for saving us, Mr. Lyman.”

“I was glad to be of service, and I’ll do another mitzvah and let your parents know where you’re off to.”

Rachel smiled and thanked him again before giving him a parting hug and then heading to the front of the house with Josh.

“Shit, they’ve blocked my car,” Josh said as he looked out at all the cars that would prevent him from getting his Audi out of the driveway.

“Well, I’ve got a solution. Come on,” she said before Josh could get too agitated. Nothing was getting between her and a chocolate milkshake topped with a maraschino cherry.

Josh did as he was told and was uncharacteristically quiet as Rachel led him a few houses down the road to her own home where her car was waiting.  
They made it to the diner in record time and, while they were at Joey’s, Rachel told Josh all about her time at Oxford, Josh joked about Britain's love affair with warm beer as he drank from his own ice cold bottle, and Rachel laughed and relished her burger and shake while he made all of his ridiculous cracks.

As Josh tossed a french fry into his mouth he thought that maybe the summer that was fast approaching might not be a bad one after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song lyrics at the beginning are from Frank Sinatra's Summer Wind and the record Josh is referring to is Time Out, its most famous track is, of course, Take Five.
> 
> extended author's notes can be found here: http://thegodshaveconspired.tumblr.com/notes

**Author's Note:**

> as always, extended author's notes with all sorts of 'goodies' can be found at thegodshaveconspired.tumblr.com/notes ^_^


End file.
